


What Will Happen from Now On

by Deannie



Series: The Mistake [3]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Magnificent Seven AU: ATF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 04:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5729056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six weeks ago, Ezra would have been gratified to see the anger on Chris’s face redirect itself to the protective stance he used to put such stock in. The grim look of a man who wouldn’t let any of his own men be hurt.</p><p>
  <i>So much for that.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Will Happen from Now On

Ezra Standish looked around his apartment and found it neat and tidy, as always. Ready for whoever was on-shift tonight for Standish Watch. If Vin, Buck, and JD had a defined calendar for their evening visits, Ezra had yet to divine it.

In point of fact, only Vin “visited”. He called, determined what Ezra might like to eat, asked after him, and gave him a rough estimated time of arrival. Buck, God love him, showed up whenever he got off work, often with a six pack and nothing else, and “just happened to be in the neighborhood.” JD was even less artful about it.

But barring that first hour or so, when he was home from the day’s doctor’s appointment or therapy appointment or PT, Ezra was rarely alone of an evening—though that solitude used to be something he craved. They knew that had changed and they cared, and for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom, Ezra valued that over almost anything right now.

Mother would be appalled.

It was part of why he was glad that Josiah had waited for him to regain consciousness and had _asked_ him whether they should call her. She’d just tell him, once again, that this is what you get when you choose the wrong side (justice being the wrong side and profit being the right). She’d remind him about those “horrible men in Atlanta” and say that history repeats itself, completely missing the actual lesson behind that phrase. She’d go on to lament the damage to his “lovely hands...”

Well at least there, he could agree with her. They _were_ mangled. The plastic surgeon assured him that the procedure next month would return his left one to something approaching normal, and he had to concede that his right hand was looking and moving better and better as the swelling went down. The fingers that had been dislocated weren’t even painful anymore, though the broken ones still hurt fiercely. While he could grasp with his right, he knew it would be months before he could hold a gun again. He refused to think about that, knowing that he might never again be _allowed_ to hold a gun in any official capacity.

A part of him that always had to see the silver lining wondered if he’d end up like his mother’s friend William. Will Mackley had broken his left thumb severely in a car accident when he was twenty and, as a result, his thumb dislocated on command, making it almost impossible for handcuffs to hold him. It would certainly be a handy skill to have in Ezra’s line of work.

If this was still to be his line of work.

He supposed everyone was expecting him to resign before he was thrown out anyway, but they’d be expecting it for the wrong reasons. Well, given his carrying on and the makeover he’d given Josiah’s spare room last week—he seemed to remember actually using the phrase Judas goat at one point—perhaps _he_ would understand the truth, but for the most part, people would expect that he was running away out of fear.

Yes, Tarnowski and his torture had been terrible. The time he’d spent locked in that room in the basement of the man’s casino had been horrific and painful and soul crushing—

Ezra took a deep breath and fought down the nausea and the visions that crowded into his brain, but the buzz and pain of them wouldn’t be denied. Hammers and knives and needles… And hammers...

He went to his drinks cart and awkwardly poured a large snifter of brandy, draining half of it before light and sound and thought returned. He’d pay for the combination of alcohol and painkillers later, but he couldn’t be bothered right at the moment.

Yes, Tarnowski had been horrible. But worse had been the one real image that had stayed with him when the rest of reality had been chased off by the drugs and the pain in that cold darkness.

_“Ezra, I don’t care what it takes,” Chris had railed at him. “Just do what you can to get the location of that damn meet-and-greet!”_

And in Chris’s eyes, Ezra had seen that, in reality, Chris really _didn’t_ care what it took. He was sacrificing Ezra willfully.

And like a fool, Ezra went.

It was all his own fault anyway, and that was the ultimate problem. He’d chosen to take Chris Larabee’s admonishment to never run out on him again and turn it into some sort of knight’s tale, full of honor and crusades for righteousness. He’d led himself to believe that Team Seven would never shoot him in the back.

He chuckled to himself as he drained the rest of the snifter and left it empty on the bar. To be fair, it was never proven that Agent Farron was the one who shot him in the back in Atlanta. The bullet got lost in the ER and the ballistics were never run. Atlanta General was a busy trauma center. It happened, right?

Somehow, though, this hurt worse. He’d never liked his team in Atlanta and they’d certainly never liked him. For the most part they were government-sanctioned thugs who didn’t have a problem with brutality—their own or anyone else’s. But these men here in Denver had seemed so different….

His musings were interrupted by his landline ringing, and he grabbed his pointy stick in his bandaged hand, using it to press the speaker button rather than wrangle with the receiver. The number on the caller ID made him grin in relief.

“Mr. Tanner, I presume?” he asked cheerfully. He was surprised to find it wasn’t completely faked. He had genuinely come to enjoy these evenings with Vin. There was no pressure to talk or to emote. Vin was as broken as he was. When either needed to speak, the other listened, but mst nights they were simply content to let each other be.

“Hey Ez! What’s for dinner?”

“I took the liberty of calling for Indian,” he told him. “Shockingly, I’ve actually tired of burgers and fries.”

“Oh. Um, okay.”

Ezra started to smell a rat. “Is there a problem?”

“No. No problem.” Vin was nervous. “Look I’m heading out now. Probably be about twenty minutes.”

“Dinner should be waiting by then.” What was going on?

Ezra tried to breathe, feeling his panic spike. Oh God, _what was going on?_

“Well, great then. I’ll see you soon.”

The phone switched over to a dial tone before Ezra noticed Vin had hung up. He pushed the speaker button and sat at the table trying to calm himself down. It wouldn’t do to throw up twice in one day, but his seemingly endless anxiety wouldn’t be assuaged.

The drugs Tarnowski had used on him to try to get him to give up his reasons for being there… They were the problem. The psychiatrist explained that he would have a propensity for panic attacks as well as a heightened sense of paranoia for a disturbing stretch of time as his brain chemistry returned to normal. Ezra had laughed at that. Could he _get_ any more paranoid?

 _Apparently so,_ he thought, watching his hands shake. _Come now, this could be a number of things,_ he told himself logically.

One, Dr. Tilman had revealed certain of the details of their therapy sessions—particularly today’s—in which case he was likely to be invaded by the whole well-meaning horde of them, professing their loyalty and friendship, which would just serve to make him feel sick and trapped and embarrassed—and betrayed by yet another person who should have had his best interests at heart.

Two, Vin was just distracted and Ezra himself was making more of this than was actually there, which made sense, since Vin was as screwed up as he was right at the moment and prone to being unpredictable.

Three—

The doorbell rang and Ezra pulled himself together with a sharp mental shake and headed to the front hall to do battle with the knob. It took a long minute of fiddling to get it open, and Jamie, the delivery boy from India House, was staring at him in open surprise when he did.

“Wow, Mr. Standish, what happened to your hands?”

“That, Jamie, is a long story.”

Jamie accepted that easily. “Well, here, let me put this in the kitchen for you, then.” He headed to the countertop. “Want me to pull it out for you? How do you eat with those?”

Ezra smiled. Jamie was a bright boy, talkative and energetic and curious as all get out. He reminded Ezra of JD, in fact. Before Tarnowski, anyway. “I stick a spoon in the splint.”

“Awesome,” Jamie said. He took out an excessive number of Styrofoam containers.

“I think perhaps my order got confused with someone else’s?” Ezra said, that rat making its appearance again. Instead of fear, this time it brought anger. “I had gosht vindalu, chicken tikka, and roti.”

“And the biriyani and pakora Mr. Tanner called in before I left.” Jamie turned back to him and Ezra made sure he’d see the same placid, pleasant face Mr. Standish always showed him.

“I see,” Ezra said quietly. He was going to kill Vin. Slowly. “What, pray tell, is my revised total?”

“Oh, Mr. Tanner took care of it,” Jamie said blithely, headed back toward the door. “You take care of those hands, okay, Mr. Standish?”

“I will, Jamie,” Ezra replied. _After I crush the life out of one sneaky Texas rat._ “Be safe.”

Jamie chuckled. “I always am, Mr. Standish, you know that!” He waved to Ezra’s hands. “I’ll close the door behind me.”

The door closed and Ezra waited a moment before launching into a long, filthy tirade of swear words his colleagues would be surprised to know he knew. At length, he took a deep breath to regain his poise. On the bright side, the anger did a wonderful job of staving off yet another panic attack, and when his doorbell rang again ten minutes later, his voice was even and cheerful.

“It’s unlocked!”

Vin poked his head in, nervous as a teenager sneaking his boyfriend in after curfew.

 _At least something good will come of my ordeal_ , Ezra thought inanely. Vin and Chris were obviously speaking again.

“Um, Hey Ez. So, I brought—“

“Your biriyani is on the countertop, Mr. Larabee,” Ezra broke in sharply.

Chris Larabee slid in behind Vin and Ezra felt the flush of fear and anger and self-loathing he always did when he looked at the man now. The man who was supposed to have been his leader—hell, the man he’d almost seen as his savior, giving him a second chance when no one else ever had. Ezra was a fool of the highest order, and now he had proof.

“Ezra,” Chris greeted him simply. He looked nervous too, and Ezra was glad of it. Let _him_ be nervous. Ezra was fed up with being a cat in a dog kennel...

> _“Did you know that declawing a cat is essentially chopping the tops of his fingers off?”_
> 
> _Tarnowski’s voice was distorted by the last dose of drug, but Ezra felt a bolt of terror run through him at the sound of it. Still, he had a reputation to maintain. He thought he did at any rate—things that had happened outside the room were awfully foggy. Things in here, though? Painfully crystal clear._
> 
> _“I was aware,” he replied. He had no idea whether the words made any sense anymore. No one was listening, anyway. “Are you aware that a declawed cat can disembowel prey with its teeth alone?”_
> 
> _Tarnowski’s chuckle sounded like something out of hell and a shining ball peen hammer was suddenly waving in front of Ezra’s face, causing his empty stomach to churn as he fought to focus on it._
> 
> _“As tempting as the idea of getting rid of that second weapon is,” the man said conversationally, barely tapping the cold metal against Ezra’s jaw for a breath-taking moment, “Let’s start with the easiest part first.” Someone in the perpetual fog reached out to straighten one of his arms and lay his hand flat on a rough table._
> 
> _The worst part of this hopelessly paralyzing drug was the fact that he could feel_ everything _..._

A hand touched his shoulder—

“Chris, don’t touch him—”

—and Ezra slammed an elbow hard into the face of the man in front of him. It was hardly elegant, but he was far enough into survival mode that he just went on instinct, balancing unsteadily on one leg to deliver a kick to the downed figure.

“Ez?”

Ezra froze, mid-kick, his balance not what it should be and threatening to make him collapse in a heap. He dropped his right foot to the ground with a thud and fought through the fog until Vin stood between him and whoever was picking himself up off the floor.

“You with me now, Ezra?”

 _Wonderful,_ he thought breathlessly. He hadn’t had a flashback in nearly a week—had almost begun to hope that that part of this nightmare might be over.

“What the hell was—” a familiar voice demanded. Always demanded, even when it didn’t.

“Just stay back, you fool,” Vin grumbled. “Give him a minute. Ezra, come on now. You’re home, okay?”

Well of course he was home. Hadn’t Jamie just dropped off his dinner? Dinner…

He blinked hard and the fog cleared. Vin grinned painfully not two feet in front of him as Chris stood behind Tanner with blood running from his nose, a look of horror and guilt and—fuck the man— _pity_ on his face.

The guilt was all Ezra really wanted to see. He’d seen pity in spades from Larabee since he came back to work. And anger and avoidance and sadness (which he could stick right in his ass, thank you). But the guilt was new.

“I expect that’ll interfere with your biriyani,” he murmured, voice smooth as silk as he fought to regain his composure.

Vin laughed, a little hysterical. “Looks like you’re ready to qualify for hand-to… well, hand-to-elbow combat anyway,” he said good-naturedly. He maintained his position between Ezra and Chris, and Ezra was unbelievably thankful for it.

The off-color comment was enough to bring Chris out of whatever trance the blow had put him in, and Larabee blinked. “Ezra…”

Vin slapped Chris on the shoulder and forcibly steered him into the kitchen, a nod at Ezra saying he was doing it to give Ezra a chance to pull himself back together. “Talk later—he’s already hit you once, Larabee. No telling what he’ll do if you bleed on his carpet.”

Chris already had. Ezra stared at the dots of livid red that were rusting on his pristine white carpet. Pristine white… the table in the pit had been quartz… Pristine white with dots, drips, smears of livid red—

“Hey Standish! Where the hell are the paper towels!?”

Vin’s voice brought him back before he went too far into the pit and Ezra walked slowly into the kitchen to see Vin using the napkins from their dinner spread to hold against Chris’s nose.

Ezra was perversely proud of himself for that shot. He’d have to let Dr. Tilman know she was right—apparently he wasn’t as defenseless as he thought he was.

He went to the coat closet and brought down a new roll of paper towel from the shelf at the top, balancing it carefully in his nearly useless hands and dropping it on the kitchen table when he got there.

“Thanks,” Vin said, winking at him as Chris let out a curse at the switch of absorbent material. Ezra was surprised to feel himself crack a smile. Larabee was staring and he tried not to sweat at the scrutiny.

“I didn’t think y’all would come to blows quite so quick,” Vin said amiably. “Figured we’d at least get through dinner.”

“Suddenly not hungry,” Larabee grumbled in a blunted voice. “Guess it serves me right for not calling ahead.”

 _Serves you right for a lot of things,_ Ezra thought bitterly, watching the two men fight with the bloody nose in near silence. Well, this was just perfect.

Something occurred to him. Actually this _was_ perfect. Dr. Tilman had been listening to Ezra talk his way through whether to stay or go for more than two weeks now—ever since Ezra was given the date when he’d be returned to the half-time desk duty that was currently driving him insane. One of the biggest questions she had asked was whether Ezra could trust his partners to be there for him. A reasonable question after what he’d been through, though not necessarily the biggest question in his own mind.

He trusted Vin, though he’d be surprised if the reverse was still true. And Buck. JD, obviously. Even Josiah and Nathan, with their questions and disapprovals about his life before he became a federal agent… No, the only one of them he didn’t trust any longer was Chris Larabee, the leader of their ragtag band.

And on him, everything hinged.

Ezra rose, still limping slightly from the healing knife wound in his thigh, and started laying the food out on the table. “Beer or water, Vin?” he said, purposely excluding Chris like the five-year-old he really wanted to be right now.

“Beer’s good,” Vin replied. “Think I might’ve got this stopped, Cowboy.”

He took the paper towel away from Chris’s nose as Ezra crossed to the fridge and dragged two bottles of beer and his own pitiable bottle of water out and onto the counter one at a time. He had already spiked his nightly medicine dose with the brandy from earlier. No use pushing his luck. Lord, these damn hands were inconvenient…

> _“This would be a whole lot less inconvenient if you just told me who sent you.” The devil’s voice was soft and persuasive in his ear but the nauseating pain of whatever they’d done to his hand was enough to keep his mouth shut. “It’s so hard to play a proper game of poker one-handed, don’t you think?”_
> 
> _The words penetrated, and Ezra fearfully looked down at the table before him, the drug and the pain and the blows to the head causing his eyes to fight for even the most basic focus._
> 
> _White and red and… He wondered idly, incoherently, if, somewhere in there, he still had all his fingers…_

“...call someone?” Chris’s voice was almost concerned under a blanket of anger and irritation. “Is this happening _all_ the time?”

“Ain’t so much these days,” Vin drawled, the acceptance of Ezra’s new normal somehow warming, even in the fog. “He’ll come out of it, Chris, give him a God damned second, okay?” A sigh brought Ezra back that last step and he saw Vin settling into a chair at the table while Larabee stared. Chris’s face had been sketchily wiped down, but he was still a mess.

_And aren’t we all?_

“Mr. Tanner will no doubt tell you that I’m not usually so… preoccupied these days,” he said, causing Chris to blink in surprise. “I expect it’s the abrupt change in routine.”

His pointed comment had Chris shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have come over,” he agreed. “I just… I figured it’s past time to clear the air between us.”

“Is it?” Ezra asked, pleased that he sounded just as cool and unruffled as usual. He gestured to the food. “Perhaps after dinner?”

Chris’s anger visibly flared and Ezra fought not to show his spike of fear. He channeled his own constant, impotent, useless fury instead. “Mr. Larabee, there are those of us whose entire lives at this point seem to revolve around required meals and medications, so if you will excuse me _I_ , at least, will eat.” _Even if it tastes like so much sawdust._

“They after you to eat again, huh, Ez?” Vin said into the sudden shocked silence.

Ezra sighed, sorry now he’d said a word. “It’s to be expected.”

He could feel Larabee measuring him. Yes, he’d lost weight. Yes, he was haggard. _And yes, Chris Larabee, it is almost as much your fault as it is mine._

The meal was silent and uncomfortable, and Ezra wondered idly why he didn’t just throw the two of them out as he would have done a mere six weeks ago. Though he supposed that six weeks ago he’d have had no reason to throw them out. They probably wouldn’t have been invading his space in the first place.

You all et up, now, Ezra?” Vin asked pointedly, throwing the last of the trash into the bin and dropping his plate in the sink. “Because I figure Chris has a lot he wants to say.”

 _And little that will cross his lips,_ Ezra thought almost amusedly. Lord, he did used to enjoy making Larabee squirm.

“Ezra…” Chris shook his head. “God, I didn’t know it was this bad.”

Ezra sat back, surprising himself by going for the throat. “You had little cause to find out, I suppose.”

“I deserve that.” Chris looked up at Vin with a pleading look and Vin snorted his derision.

“I ain’t helping you on this one,” he said plainly. “Pills in the usual place, Ez?”

“I have neither cause nor real ability to move them, Mr. Tanner.” Ezra met Vin’s eyes and smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”

Vin waved it away and headed for the bathroom. Ezra expected it would take him some time to return.

“I’m sorry, Ezra,” Chris said quietly. “Should have checked on you before. I just…”

“I’ve been well looked after, Mr. Larabee,” Ezra told him truthfully, watching the comment bury another arrow in Chris’s chest. In Ezra’s mind right now, there really couldn’t be too many. “Among them, Buck, JD, and Vin have kept me in salt and saturated fat, at any rate.”

Chris nodded, though Ezra was certain he hadn’t processed the words. How…” Chris cleared his throat and tried again. “How are your sessions with Tilman going?”

Ah, there. The ideal opening.

“The current topic of conversation—both between myself and the lovely Dr. Tilman, and between her and her superiors—is whether my usefulness as an undercover agent has been permanently compromised.”

Six weeks ago, Ezra would have been gratified to see the anger on Chris’s face redirect itself to the protective stance he used to put such stock in. The grim look of a man who wouldn’t let any of his own men be hurt.

_So much for that._

“But they said your hands will make a full recovery,” Chris stated in confusion. “And you and Tilman…”

“An undercover operative is more than just his hands and his wits, Mr. Larabee,” he said, watching the other man closely. “He must be able to be trusted to make a correct read of any volatile situation—”

“Ezra—”

“I misread the situation in this case horribly, to my detriment and to Mr. Tanner’s. I am uncertain I can trust myself to handle the next situation with any greater success.” He leaned back, wishing he’d let Vin bring the pain pills before starting this. He was getting to the explosive bit now. “And I believe Team Seven already has an able analyst in the form of Mr. Sanchez. You do not need another if they decide to put a more able field agent in my place.”

Predictably, Chris’s eyes narrowed. “You know we’d fight for you, Ezra,” he said fervently. “We wouldn’t just leave you twisting.”

“Again.”

Ezra watched the word break down all of Larabee’s carefully built rationalizations. He smiled gently at the tragedy in Chris’s eyes and spread his arms a bit, his hands mute reminders of the recent past. “You see my problem, Mr. Larabee,” he murmured. “I woefully misread your… fervency… in the matter of your team’s survival, and it nearly cost two of us our lives. How can I trust myself to not to make the same mistake twice?”

“It wasn’t your mistake,” Chris barked back. Ezra damned himself for flinching. It would likely only derail the proceedings. “It wasn’t your mistake,” Chris repeated more quietly. “It was mine.”

“Yes,” Ezra agreed readily. “But in seeing you make it, I should have refused to continue with the operation as it stood—I am hardly a stranger to disobeying orders, now am I?”

“You don’t disobey mine,” his companion whispered, defeated. “Even when you should.”

“Which is, perhaps, why you need another undercover agent.”

Ezra saw the shadow of Vin leaning against the hallway wall, listening without interrupting the proceedings. Lord, he’d miss these men. But Chris’s responses only served to answer the biggest question Ezra still had: Could he trust himself to make the right decisions when faced with this team of his? He would always choose to follow Chris, to ensure Vin’s or JD’s or Buck’s safety. Even now, with the anger and betrayal roiling in his gut.

And so the answer to that question was clearly no.

“Ezra, we can’t lose you,” Chris said simply. “The team can’t. I… I’d already decided to leave before I talked to Vin today—” Ezra heard Vin curse almost silently in disappointment. “—and I see I was right. You can’t trust me, and you never will. Maybe you can trust the next one.”

“And yet, I’ll never trust myself,” Ezra said, suddenly at the heart of a matter he’d danced around with Tilman and his friends and himself. “I believe you have made enough mistakes in the recent past, Mr. Larabee,” he said firmly. “Leaving Team Seven would just be one more. Perhaps almost as colossal as the one that landed us in this mess.”

“You being an idiot is only making it worse, you know, Ezra?” Vin drawled lightly, pushing off the wall and entering the room with two bottles of pills in his hand. He crossed to the cabinets and brought down a glass, filled it with tap water and placed the lot of it in front of Ezra before he sat down and spoke again. “You leave. He leaves. Fuck, either way, we’re all done for.” He leaned back. “Damn selfish of both of you, if you ask me.”

Ezra curled his few working fingers into fists, using the pain to focus. “If you will remember, Vin, my idiocy has already come close to getting you killed.”

Vin chuckled bitterly. “Seems like I did a damn fine job of that all by myself, Standish. I don’t need you taking any credit for it.”

“You’re wrong, Vin. If I hadn’t pushed Tarnowski—”

“If you hadn’t pushed Tarnowski, if Chris hadn’t pushed _you_ , if I hadn’t pushed Chris… Fuck, boys, it seems to me we should all be out on our asses.” He took a drink of his beer. “But where does that leave the rest of them?”

Ezra let a chill run down his spine at the look he’d seen on JD’s face just this morning. He was scared. Scared of losing everything.

“Family fucks up,” Vin said simply. “Fucks up royal, sometimes. And we all did that here, right?” He leaned forward. “But God damn it, Ezra, tell me you wouldn’t do the same damn thing over again? You’ve been walking into the dragon’s mouth for all of us since almost day one. You can leave, sure. But who’s gonna be there to do that for us the next time we need you?”

Ezra let the words penetrate without allowing himself to react.

“Chris, you got a chip on your shoulder so damn big I’m amazed you get up in the morning. Made it bigger with this shit, and deservedly so. But it don’t mean you get to back out on us.” Vin shook his head. “Whole damn thing is my fault to begin with, but you don’t see me walking away.”

“Or at the Saloon,” Ezra said quietly. “Or anywhere else.” He smiled gently at Vin. “You’re clearly paying some debt to me by showing up here two or three nights a week, but I expect you haven’t even spoken to JD, have you?”

Ezra knew, from one night when JD drank more of his six pack than he should have, that their youngest member had been the one to find Vin: naked, beaten, shot and left to die. JD had also asked, in passing but with great intent, how Vin was doing. Every time Ezra saw the young man.

“He don’t need to see me quite yet,” Vin said quietly, rubbing self-consciously at the scar on his cheek, still angry-red.

“He needed to see you from the beginning,” Chris said firmly. “Nothing like seeing wounds heal to know that they can.”

The three of them sat in silence and Ezra ran things through his mind. Vin was entirely right. He would choose to put his life on the line for any of them—Lord help him, even Chris—any time. It would never change, and removing himself from them would only make this entire situation worse. _Nothing like seeing wounds heal…_

Ezra wondered if they could heal, and immediately scolded himself for such maudlin reflection. These wounds would heal because they had to. Because life, always, was a better option than the alternative. And life with Team Seven was worth even the pain of trying to learn to trust again.

“I’ve never understood why you followed me so damn blindly,” Chris said roughly.

“Yes, well,” Ezra replied with a wry grin. “The bloom is certainly off that rose, I assure you.”

Chris leaned forward, earnest and guilty and torn apart. “There’s not a one of you I’d sacrifice, Ezra—I… God, I sat in that damn seat by your hospital bed and… ‘No matter the cost’ is bullshit when that cost is one of you.” He caught Ezra’s eyes and held them. “ _Any_ of you.”

Ezra nodded, but that promise wasn’t one he trusted Chris to keep. Yet.

“And what about you and Vin?” he asked. Because it needed to be asked. Because, as much as he didn’t begrudge anyone’s love—as much as he saw that the two of them worked in a way few did—he and Vin carried too many scars now to allow the unorthodox relationship to go unexamined.

Chris looked at his hands and Vin sighed. “Hell if I know, Ez,” Vin said finally. “But I’m damn sure never making that kind of mistake again.”

What kind of mistake, Ezra didn’t ask. He’d spent enough evenings with Vin quietly berating himself on his sofa to know that the younger man had allowed himself to be wrapped up in the plight of Tarnowski’s harem—he’d chosen to use any means available to worm his way in and try to keep them safe.

Ezra closed his eyes, something starting, slowly, to uncoil in his belly. Nothing was right, but maybe it could be. He found himself more than willing to try to make it so. 

“You okay, Ezra?” Vin asked quietly, jolting him from his thoughts. “You’re listing a bit there.”

He expected he was. “I believe I should seek my bed rather earlier than usual, Mr. Tanner,” he said, looking at the prescription bottles before him and at a loss as to how he was going to open them tonight, exhausted as he suddenly was.

Chris solved the problem, picking up each bottle and reading the instructions. He opened only one of the two and placed a yellow caplet beside the glass of water, eschewing the dilaudid. Ezra peered up at him questioningly.

“Saw the brandy snifter on the bar,” Chris said easily. It was almost like life before this hell and Ezra wanted to embrace it. “Figured you had enough problems just dealing with us.”

Ezra nodded, taking his antibiotic and struggling to his feet. Lord, he was exhausted. “I believe you can see yourselves out,” he said, unwilling, for now, to finish the conversation they’d so clearly barely started.

Chris and Vin looked at each other as they flanked Ezra, walking with him to the door of his room.

“Figure we might stay a while,” Vin said, asking careful permission. “You okay with it if we’re here when you wake up?”

Ezra considered it, truly, and came up with the one answer he’d thought he’d given up on.

“I suppose I expect you’ll always be here, Mr. Tanner,” he said quietly. He looked over at Chris and something unsettled in his mind calmed. Just slightly. “All of you.”

He had the door nearly closed before he heard Chris’s quiet vow. “Always, Ezra. From now on.”

Ezra headed for his bed. From now on was the most he could hope for. And perhaps, all he wanted.

*******  
the end


End file.
